Shaken summation

Rip It Up, Issue 84, 1 July 1984, Page 29

Shaken summation

The Chills Pink Frost (Flying Nun) If you've been anywhere near me in the past couple of weeks you'll have become thoroughly sick of this song or. like me, you'll still get a little shiver every time you hear it. It has its faults and there's a certain naievety about it (certainly in the lyrics) but there's an organic little magic here the three members truly work together to follow an unusual song structure that's so natural it doesn't seem like a structure. Purple Girl' is a neat psychedelic romp that joins those other Great South Island Whistling Songs. Tally Ho' and Rolling Moon'. Buy this and make the Chills pop stars. Jag Moritz Boot Up (Hit Singles) Jag Moritz is. of course, good ol' lan Morris but you wouldn't know it here. This is a wacky bit of middleweight funk that has a string of computer cliches for a lyric ("You got the software. I got the hard ...") and an insanely catchy hook. The production doesn't ever quite cut loose but it's the best I've heard someone in this country do with dance production. Novelty songs don't come a lot better than this. YFC Between Two Thieves

(Hit Singles) Six songs recorded in only 10

hours hard and joyously sparse, it sounds best LOUD. YFC are (or were) two bass guitars and a drum kit and while that lineup has given the record a fairly homogenous feel, it has also allowed YFC to carve out a very strong, highly individual identity. Had they made another record, it would have been necessary to change but this record stands as a statement of the band as it had developed. Paleface', with a recorded talkover from some American redneck about homosexuals and that sorta shit betrays the most Jonny Ogilvie's fascination with American culture guess where he is now? Circus Block 4 In Stone In Steel (Jayrem) A fairly simple bit of light instrumental funk that works because it's a genuinely good song poppy enough to get played or the radio but certainly not flaky. Gavin McLean sings well on it and better on the B-side, the less taut Dead Inside'. Low Profile Elephunk In My Soup (Jayrem) It's hard to believe that this was recorded in the eight-track studio Steve Garden used to keep under his house (things have gotten more. er. progressive now). The sound is so good and there's so much happening that it sounds like a big studio job. Elephunk' is a dense, demented bit of funk topped off by Garden's neurotic vocal. It could perhaps have been a little gappier to be really funky. Wirtlesnaggling' is in the same silly vein but Stripes' is considerably more sombre. It works .through a series of moods, just giving you a fright every now and then. There's a lot in there. Not bad for an old fella. Phil! Echoes, Places Look. I must make it clear now that I have nothing at all against bands who happen to come from the Waikato. But when they put out records like this ... Places' chugs along in the style of most pub rock bands who own synthesisers the drummer might as well be asleep. It has a hook and. apart from the trick ending (which certainly fooled me) is manifestly predictable. Echoes Of A Dream' is better but not much. All is forgiven, take me to Baghdad! Russell Brown